Christopher Bonanos Author Archive
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Christopher Bonanos

City Editor, New York Magazine
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@heybonanos
@polaroidland

Christopher Bonanos is New York’s city editor. He joined the magazine in 1993 and covers urbanism, transit, and theater, as well as running the magazine’s Reread newsletter and OldNYMag Instagram feed, surfacing the best of its archives. He is also the author of Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Biography of 2018, and Instant: The Story of Polaroid.

  1. best of 2024
    The Best Books of 2024 (So Far)A highly anticipated sequel, a brilliant debut, and nonfiction to linger on.
  2. theater review
    Sutton Foster Brings Some Bounce to Once Upon a MattressWorking off a book freshened up by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the actress gives it her all in this transfer of an Encores! production.
  3. vulture lists
    Billy Joel At Home In Los Angeles
    Every Billy Joel Song, RankedHe’s a better pop songwriter than you remember.
  4. neighborhood news
    And Just Like That … Brings SJP Back to Gramercy ParkA moment with SJP as she shoots season three of And Just Like That…. John Corbett, a.k.a. Aidan, made an appearance that day as well.
  5. reread
    Tom Wolfe’s Worldview Came Into Focus In New YorkThe new documentary “Radical Wolfe” captures a singular writer whose story is bound up with our own—as you can read in his freshly-digitized archive.
  6. photography
    Will Vogt Sees Rich PeopleThe photographs in These Americans depict the wealthy at leisure with their guard down.
  7. america decides
    ‘If the Election Doesn’t Feel Legitimate, Everything Else Is at Risk’A chat with Eric Schultz, one of Succession’s politics consultants.
  8. the real estate
    Is $63 Million Too Much for Logan Roy’s House?Marcia and Connor make one of the quickest deals in history.
  9. remembrance
    Al Jaffee’s Snappy, Not So Stupid MAD LegacyMAD’s longest-serving cartoonist invented a way to do something unusual: turn a pulp-magazine page into an animated, interactive feature.
  10. napoleonica
    How Much Are Napoleon and Josephine’s Letters Worth?The only wedding gift fit for a Roy.
  11. obituary
    Logan Roy Wouldn’t Look Back“I fuckin’ love news.”
  12. great moments in journalism
    Logan Roy Pulls a Rupert MurdochThese fellas seem similar.
  13. vulture lists
    The Best Books of 2022Yes, this list features more than one book set in a postapocalyptic world, but have you looked around lately?
  14. breakfast
    I Made an Egg-Yolk Omelet James Corden Would Hate“This was going to be a variation on a classic: omelette aux fines herbes à la Corden pique.”
  15. theater review
    A Near-Perfect Into the Woods, for a MomentSara Bareilles leads a cast without a weak link.
  16. theater review
    Straight Line Crazy Gives Us Robert Moses Without the FireA very talky, very static play.
  17. books
    Backstage at the Birth of Sesame StreetThe Muppeteers look even shaggier than Oscar does.
  18. from a barstool in manhattan
    In New York’s Great Newspaper Movies, Breaking a Story Can Be the StoryThe chase is everything, even if it wrecks everything else.
  19. new york in your bones
    The 101 Best New York City Movies, RankedSome movies reflect the perilous reality of living here, others the urbane fantasy. The greatest do both.
  20. stephen sondheim
    Tonight’s Performance of Company Became a Tribute to Stephen SondheimHours after the composer’s unexpected death, cast and audience shared grief and affection.
  21. encounter
    ‘The Depth Is in the Pictures, Not What I Say About Them’Rosalind Fox Solomon has been making haunting photographs for 50 years. She’s got more stories to tell than she lets on.
  22. land of hope and dreams
    A First Night Back to Theater With Springsteen on Broadway“You know how people talk about his shows as a religious experience? I got that.”
  23. friday night movie club
    Wiping the Dust Off Sweet Smell of SuccessIt’s an incredibly contemporary movie about media power and the brutally transactional form it can take.
  24. remembrance
    Pamela Tiffin, Star of ‘One, Two, Three’ and ‘Summer and Smoke,’ Dies at 78She was great onscreen in a short career — and had an unexpected connection to this magazine.
  25. obits
    Carl Reiner Taught the World What a Comedy Writer DoesUntil Reiner came along, nobody outside the business knew about the writers’ room; today we all do.
  26. kids and tv
    A 10-Year-Old Interviews John Mulaney About His Kids’ SpecialThe comedian answers all of a young superfan’s questions about John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch.
  27. art
    Man Duct-tapes Banana to Wall, Makes $240,000, Credits New York MagazineHowever, a prankster has now eaten the banana.
  28. obituary
    On John SimonConsidering the longtime New York critic, who died yesterday at 94.
  29. robert evans
    The Astoundingly True Story of The Cotton Club, a Movie That Wouldn’t DieIn honor of the life of legendary producer Robert Evans, we’re revisiting the film that almost made him lose his tan.
  30. theater review
    Theater Review: Trying to Locate The Rose TattooLesser Tennessee Williams, starring Marisa Tomei.
  31. books
    Laura Lippman on Baltimore’s Many Lives and Layered Literary MythsFew people know the city like this novelist-reporter.
  32. obit
    Al Feldstein and the Furshlugginer Greatness of Mad MagazineAn assessment of Mad’s place in the culture, as the magazine goes off to its final Fold-in.
  33. gallery
    A Trove of ‘Lost’ New York City Crime Scene Photos, Unearthed After 82 YearsSeventy-three prints from legendary photographer Weegee were stashed in a kitchen cupboard and unseen until now.
  34. art
    Tom Slaughter’s Polaroid PortfolioThe artist known for his Pop-y paintings and prints had a side project: shooting Polaroid photos, constantly, of everything that interested him.
  35. book excerpt
    Almost Nothing in Arthur ‘Weegee’ Fellig’s Greatest Photo Happened by Accident“With this picture,” he said, “I matured as a photographer and human being.”
  36. how did i get here?
    How My Son and I Ended Up in a Film About FilmInstant Dreams, a documentary about Polaroid enthusiasts, comes to New York. I’m in it. How’d that happen?
  37. photography
    On the Nearly Indescribable Light in Diane Arbus’s Last PhotographsIs it about to rain? Dusk? Something else? Go to David Zwirner to see.
  38. vulture picks
    Neil Simon’s 29 Plays and Four Musicals: A Guide to the Highs and LowsA guide to the playwright’s body of work, which spanned nearly 50 years.
  39. Remaking a Murder: How Weegee Photographed a Mob KillingA lot went into his famous photo of the slaying of Dominick Didato.
  40. Philip Roth’s Biographer Has a Hair-raising Claire Bloom StoryBlake Bailey on how the job changes when the subject’s no longer around.
  41. from the archives
    The Making of Tom Wolfe’s ‘Radical Chic’Remembering the story that helped put New York on the map.
  42. 20 Philip Roth Books, RankedThe indispensable, the significant, the disposable, and everything in between.
  43. graphic design
    Our 7 Favorite Posters (Out of 427!) From Milton Glaser’s New CollectionFive decades of wall art from New York’s co-founder.
  44. art
    The Photographer Who Captured Life in Mid-Century Burkina FasoSee lively portraits from 75-year-old Sanlé Sory, in advance of his first American exhibition.
  45. theater review
    Theater Review: Three Tall Women, Three Great ActressesLaurie Metcalf and Alison Pill and Glenda Jackson, yeah.
  46. primers
    Why You Should Care About A Futile and Stupid Gesture: A National Lampoon PrimerIt’s time for a primer for Netflix’s A Futile and Stupid Gesture, a biopic about National Lampoon co-founder Doug Kenney, based on Josh Karp’s book.
  47. from the archives
    How the Late-Night Monologue Got TopicalA short history featuring Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and Stephen Colbert.
  48. 175 Minutes With … Jill Eisenstadt“Well, I told myself I wasn’t going to be a novelist of the outer boroughs.”
  49. Theater Review: Going Back in Time, in Marvin’s RoomSomething a little hard to quantify has, over the past 25 years, flattened this play’s power.
  50. Theater Review: How Orwellian Is 1984?What’s weak, astonishingly enough, is the script, at least for the first hour.
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